Fox’s Bill O’Reilly facing sexual harassment scandal

The biggest star of Fox News, Bill O’Reilly, currently finds himself amidst a sexual harassment scandal, one that could have even dated back to as early as 2002.

O’Reilly earns a cool $18 million per year at Fox News. Forbes published an article in October, 2016 which named O’Reilly as the seventh highest paid TV show host in the United States, trailing the likes of Dr. Phil, who makes $88 million per year.

O’Reilly has been a huge asset for Fox in terms of advertising. According to Newsweek, O’Reilly has earned Fox $446 million in advertising from 2014 to 2016. However, while the huge profit comes in terms of advertising, he has cost the network a reported $13 million with five inappropriate behavior and sexual harassment payouts, dug up by the New York Times.

Per the New York Times, the payouts were made in efforts to not have the five women speak out against him, obviously.

These women had either previously been on O’Reilly’s show or had worked for the 67 year old.

The accusations made by the five women including sexual harassment and verbal vulgarity directed towards them. The first settlement was reported to have come in 2002, made to Rachel Witlieb Bernstein, who was a junior producer at the network at the time, according to the New York Times.

The two most recent settlement payouts came in 2016 and were received by Laurie Dhue, a Fox News anchor, and Juliet Huddy, another Fox News on-air personality.

In the wake of the details that have emerged from the scandal revolving around O’Reilly, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Hyundai, and Mitsubishi have all pulled their advertisements from O’Reilly’s show, “The O’Reilly Factor.” Other major corporations such as Glaxo-Smith Kline and Allstate also removed advertising from the show.

Currently, the show and the network have lost as many as 22 advertisers. Losing 22 companies that advertise with you is a key point, especially when just O’Reilly’s show alone has reeled in $446 million in advertising in a two year stretch from 2014-16, as stated above.

More information will undoubtedly continue to be released, and this will be an interesting story to follow.